Many Internet sites demand registration from users while providing services. In order to take advantage of services when joining a site, users input their important personal information such as a name, a social security number, an address, a telephone number, and an e-mail address.
In such an environment, approaches for safely managing and circulating user's information have been proposed. A representative suggests Internet Identity management systems that provide a more convenient and safe environment for users using the Internet. In detail, Internet Identity management systems provide a Single Sign On (SSO) service allowing users to freely use many sites on the Internet through a single login process and store the users' information in a safe site so that users can keep their information up-to-date and manage their information safely. Many standards and technology relating to these features have been researched and developed. Representatives are SAML of the OASIS group, ID-FF, ID-WSF, and ID-SIS of Liberty Alliance, and WS-Security of Microsoft and IBM. P3P of W3C, XACML of OASIS, and EPAL of IBM are also standards for safely managing user's personal information.
Besides Internet Identity management systems and personal information technology, a software mobile agent is the kernel of the present invention. The software mobile agent can be expressed simply in that it is software that automatically solves tasks that a user desires. Agent technology is a concept that has been being studied for a long time in the field of artificial intelligence and has separated from artificial intelligence and emerged as an independent research subject since the end of the '80s. Since the middle of the '90s, various agent techniques have been developed with the introduction of the Internet. Agents have been utilized in information searching for collecting information on the Internet, electronic commerce such as online shopping, and mobile computing such as messaging. Agents may exist in various forms according to service environments. In the present invention, an agent is a mobile agent that can move to and work in a different host and includes an encryption module to safely protect user's information.